• The business benefits of 5G go beyond standard smartphone speed.
• Private 5G networks in particular advantages for app or use case testing.
• 5G could yet bring significant business benefits to the transport and logistics sector.

With some commentators voicing concerns about whether 5G has lived up to expectations, it’s worth looking at what the fifth generation of cellular network technology is – and what it and isn’t. A good way of getting to the heart of that capability is to focus on what 5G can do for enterprise customers and business users.

5G was badged as being superfast, and this may have added to the confusion. For example, smartphone users may not notice a great deal of difference in device performance, regardless of whether they are connected to 4G or 5G.

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However, there are still reasons to celebrate from an infrastructure perspective. As we’ve mentioned on TechHQ, upgrading base stations to the latest 5G technology not only means that equipment is smaller and lighter – there can be significant energy savings too. And the advantages don’t stop there.

“The integration of AI and 5G in modern switchgear marks a significant leap in the electrical infrastructure management,” comments Kiran Raj, practice head of disruptive tech at GlobalData. “Not only does this tech convergence boost operational efficiency, but it also enhances safety by predicting and mitigating electrical failures before they happen.”

Operators in China have shown how miniature cameras inside switch cabinets can be used to detect fire and activate extinguishers. And predictive analytics can be trained using data from power transformers.

Understanding 5G business benefits

Given the link between 5G and telecoms, it’s natural to look to smartphone performance for signs that the next generation of cellular network technology is living up to the hype. But the bigger picture for 5G goes well beyond handsets.

In its recent report, 5G Building a Digital Society, Vodafone explains how 5G can improve daily life more broadly and shares examples that business and enterprise users may not have considered.

For example, Vodafone says that 5G-enabled sensors on rail networks have the potential to improve services by raising track maintenance efficiency by up to 40% and reducing the rate of fault incidence by 20%. 5G-enabled rail could also help to add capacity to the network, lowering overcrowding at peak times.

Coupling trains virtually using 5G would enable them to share braking and acceleration data. A white paper by Thales calculates that train separation distance could be reduced by 43% compared with using current railway signaling methods, based on analysis of the UK South West Main Line (a 230 km route linking central London and the coastal town of Weymouth). In principle, this would allow many more trains to run without having to build additional tracks.

Low-latency private 5G networks are being used to automate vehicles driving between parts warehouses and main manufacturing sites.

Transportation and logistics could be big winners as 5G networks become more widespread. Vehicle telematics systems have long used cellular communications to connect to the cloud and monitor that all’s well through remote analytics.

Vendors can deliver software updates over-the-air rather than having to instruct owners to contact their dealership. And 5G telematics adds to those capabilities.

Vehicles can connect to each other to see around corners and gain greater knowledge about the road ahead. Automotive technology firm Harman, which is owned by Samsung, describes 5G as the missing piece of the puzzle for highly automated vehicles.

The low latency response time (of around 1 millisecond) that’s possible over 5G – a reduction of ten times compared with 4G – means that humans can remotely control cars, trucks, and other vehicles, with reaction times that are similar to having a driver sitting inside, directly behind the wheel.

Industry 4.0 is changing the business landscape right before our eyes, thanks to #5G and the innovations that come from it . Learn how to stay at the forefront of what’s coming. #5GHQ https://t.co/rghLt3TEG2 pic.twitter.com/EIZ8oIq48B

— David Yelvington (@DavidYelvington) December 11, 2023

5G also supports a much higher connection density than 4G, which benefits smart city infrastructure and brings us arguably one of the most appealing configurations for business and enterprise users – private 5G networks.

Private 5G networks give firms data coverage inside and outside facilities while keeping communications secure. The high connection density and low latency capabilities mentioned above suit mobile robots and so-called ‘intralogistics’ – the movement of goods within a warehouse, distribution center, or production facility.

Kollmorgen, a specialist in the fleet control of automated guided vehicles and mobile robots, has demonstrated (in tests with its partner Ericsson) that platforms are as stable on private 5G networks as on Wi-Fi.

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Antenna handovers are seamless, and 5G enables localization in dynamic environments without having to use artificial landmarks, according to the team.

Support for time-sensitive networking (TSN) allows fixed Ethernet and 5G networks to operate in harmony with each other. What’s more, TSN means that 5G can support applications normally carried over wired Ethernet, potentially saving on long cable runs at large sites.

Looking at industrial operating environments for 5G, business cases include airports, manufacturing sites, ports, mining facilities, and offshore locations.

How to build a private 5G network

Business and enterprise users interested in deploying their own cellular services have the option of using a private 5G network starter kit. The approach is ideal for testing applications on a pilot scale and gaining experience before making larger investments in the technology.

Private 5G starter kits for business:

• 5G Ready – X4000 Private 5G (XP5G) Solution
• Airspan Private 5G Network in a box
• Athonet starter kit for 5G-SA
• CampusGenius 5G StarterKit
• Flo Networks Private 5G Starter Kit
• Tech Mahindra Private 5G Wireless Network suite on Azure

It’s clear that companies have much to gain from the technology, but other organizations may also wish to take a look at what 5G installations can do for them.

The Liverpool 5G Testbed, which created the largest 5G mmWave mesh network in the UK and second largest in the world, showed how a private 5G network could benefit health and social care services.

Features included a 4k video link to help patients check that they were taking their medicines correctly, which resulted in fewer GP visits and trips to hospital.

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According to the study, there was a 50% reduction in people taking the wrong medication or receiving an incorrect dosage. Medication adherence levels were as high as 95% compared with a national average of 55%.

Returning to the topic of saving energy, testing of smart streetlights in Oslo – featuring 5G-enabled sensors – demonstrated a 45% reduction in electricity consumption. In dense urban areas, savings could reach 60% – based on a 12,000 light installation deployed in the City of London, which overhauled 30-year-old lighting stock.

Smart city lighting allows control down to the level of specific streets and buildings and enables the illumination to be dimmed as well as turned on and off.

With timely investment, the rewards of 5G to businesses and society can extend way beyond the smartphone.

The post Defining 5G in terms of business and enterprise use cases appeared first on TechHQ.

• FP&A software lets businesses plan for future growth.
• While spreadsheets have their place – and their time – FP&A software allows you to extract more value from your data.
• Generative AI is making its presence felt in FP&A software, bringing new capabilities.

If you are buried in spreadsheets, and the thought of running another quarterly forecast in Excel is making you wince, it could be time to consider financial planning and analysis (FP&A) software. It’s the 21st century, after all.

There’s plenty to celebrate about spreadsheets. Tools such as VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 brought accounting entries made on large sheets of paper into the digital age. Electronic spreadsheets were one of the reasons why many businesses invested in personal computers and opened the door to ‘what if’ scenario planning.

But a lot has happened between then and now, including the growth of FP&A software – dedicated tools that overcome the issues that firms face when trying to chart future growth using Excel or Google Sheets.

Spreadsheet problems

It doesn’t take long to discover the pitfalls of using spreadsheets for business planning. “Excel is not a process-based tool,” Nelson Petracek – chief technology and product officer of Board International, a global provider of intelligent planning solutions – told TechHQ. “At a certain point, firms look for something better.”

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A big disadvantage of using software such as Excel or Google Sheets is that information can quickly become siloed and teams can become isolated in their thinking. Multiple spreadsheets can be in use at the same time, and that creates another problem.

If you’ve ever asked a colleague whether they have the most recent version of a spreadsheet, you’ll be aware of the perils of trying to manage version control manually. On top of that, companies put themselves at risk if sensitive business information is left unprotected.

General spreadsheet applications are not necessarily built with security front and center, and the business risks of using spreadsheets include unauthorized access, suffering a data breach, or losing data if standalone files are deleted by mistake and not backed up.

Last week, a portion of our @BlumbergCapital team met to strategize around fintech.

The most interesting subsectors we identified were:

– insurtech
– fp&a software
– b2b lending
– crypto
– regtech

What’s missing?

— Greg (@gregbrainard) January 30, 2023

It’s no accident that growth in FP&A software has coincided with companies generating more information than ever before. And solutions help not just in remedying the shortcomings of spreadsheets, but also combine other tools for visualization and data management into a single holistic platform.

Difference between business intelligence and FP&A software

Unlike business intelligence solutions – which answer questions such as “What can this data tell me?” – FP&A tools are designed fundamentally to help organizations address planning challenges.

“Companies are trying to expand and want to know what product goes where to meet demand,” said Petracek, referring to an everyday use case for Board’s intelligent planning solution.

Depending on their operating sector, firms may want to map that growth to e-commerce targets and run different scenarios to optimize pricing. Systems can incorporate various influencing factors, such as calendar events, weather forecasts, and many other business-relevant data sources.

List of FP&A software providers –

• Abacum
• Board
• Cube
• Finmark
• Kepion
• Planful
• Pry
• Syntellis
• Telemetry
• Vena
• Workday Adaptive Planning

To get started with FP&A software, users will typically focus on an initial use case, and go through an onboarding process with their provider. Petracek noted that there are often two types of response as users see the solution spring to life.

At the executive level, business leaders appreciate the amount of visibility that FP&A software gives them. Board’s solution includes a ‘Digital Boardroom’ with a built-in briefing book that includes geo, sales, EBITA overviews, and country details.

Annual or quarterly reports can be created within the platform as well as exported as so-called ‘live reporting books’ in MS Word and PowerPoint. What’s more, because those assets are integrated into the intelligent planning solution, charts and in-text references update in tandem with any changes or updates made within the main platform.

Having a single source of truth avoids any confusion between old and new data and means that users can make decisions based on a complete real-time view of business performance.

For staff who’ve been grappling to manually update spreadsheets and paste that information into reports, document automation is a huge time-saver and allows them to perform more value-added tasks.

Plus, as in almost every other enterprise software application available today, the benefits of generative AI and large language models hasn’t escaped business planning tools. The feature lets users have a conversation with their data and quiz the information using natural language, rather than having to learn any specialist commands.

It’s possible to assign access right down to the level of individual cells within the platform, and security around the system – in terms of who can do what – is fully controlled by the customer.

“The cloud environments are completely separate,” said Petracek. “Each customer has their own box.”

Board’s secret sauce includes a proprietary memory technology that it dubs Hybrid Bitwise Memory Pattern (HBMP), which – according to the firm – enables ten times faster query execution.

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As you would expect, Petracek was reluctant to go into too much detail, but he did reveal that the FP&A software can slice and dice data in different ways so that calculations are available in an instant. Also, the HBMP technology allows Board to scale its solution to match growing data demands.

In terms of deployments, finance teams are often some of the first experience what the software can do. However, as word spreads, organizations will scale up their activity and apply FP&A software across multiple domains – such as manufacturing and other business areas, to address different scenarios.

Having FP&A software is a boost in terms of making it easier for different business units to collaborate. And there are regulatory wins too, as firms can demonstrate that they are on top of their business information and have data to support their claims.

From a usability perspective, web-native FP&A software can be viewed on any device, from a laptop to a smartphone. “People want to consume information in different ways,” Petracek pointed out.

Today, there are thousands of companies that have made the leap from using spreadsheets to dedicated business planning tools. In the case of Board, customers include some very big names such as Coca-Cola, Puma, L’Oréal, KPMG, GSK, BASF, Toyota, KUKA, and Siemens.

Most recently, Euronext – a pan-European stock exchange group with around 1,900 listed issuers and EURO 62 trillion in market capitalization as of Q3 2023 – has chosen to use Board to optimize its financial planning, forecasting, and budgeting.

It speaks to the capability of FP&A software to deliver insights for use cases where spreadsheets would not only struggle, but perhaps fail completely.

The post FP&A software – swapping spreadsheets for SaaS appeared first on TechHQ.

• AWS unveils new features & products at re:Invent 2023.
  
• Includes Trainium2 and Graviton4 AI chips, Amazon Q Chatbot, Titan Image Generator preview.
• Plus, Guardrails for Amazon Bedrock.

In a year marked by infinite discussions on generative AI in tech conferences, AWS re:Invent 2023 seamlessly continues the trend. The conference kicked off on November 27 and has already showcased integrating AI tools and services.

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Amazon has been actively working to dispel the notion that it lags behind in the AI race. Over the past year, following the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI, major players like Google, Microsoft, and others have raised their stakes, introducing chatbots and making substantial investments in AI development. Selipsky’s keynote this year highlighted AWS’s comprehensive investment in the AI lifecycle, emphasizing high end infrastructure, advanced virtualization, petabyte-scale networking, hyperscale clustering, and tailored tools for model development.

In a keynote lasting nearly 2.5 hours, Selipsky conveyed AWS’s focus on meeting the diverse needs of organizations engaged in building AI models.

Adam Selipsky, AWS CEO, during his keynote address, sharing about innovations in data, infrastructure, & AI/ML. Source: AWS’s livestream.

Trainium2 & Graviton4: AI model training chips

Amazon took the stage at the re:Invent conference to introduce its latest chip generation for model training and inferencing, combatting the growing demand for generative AI on GPUs, with Nvidia’s offerings in short supply.

AWS’s first chip, AWS Trainium2, aims to provide up to four times improved performance and two times better energy efficiency than its predecessor, Trainium, introduced in December 2020. Amazon plans to make it accessible in EC Trn2 instances, organized in clusters of 16 chips. Trainium2 is scalable and can reach deployments of up to 100,000 chips in AWS’ EC2 UltraCluster product.

The company said this provides supercomputer-class performance with up to 65 exaflops of compute power. (“Exaflops” and “teraflops” measure how many floating-point operations a chip can perform per second.) This power will enable AWS customers to train large language models with 300 billion parameters in weeks rather than months.

AWS Graviton4 and AWS Trainium2 processors. Source: AWS

“Trainium2 chips are designed for high-performance training of models with trillions of parameters. This scale enables customers to train large language models with 300 billion parameters in weeks rather than months. The cost-effective Trn2 instances aim to accelerate advances in generative AI by delivering high-scale ML training performance,” Amazon said in a press release. “With each successive generation of chip, AWS delivers better price performance and energy efficiency, giving customers even more options—in addition to chip/instance combinations featuring the latest chips from third parties like AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA—to run virtually any application or workload on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2).”

Amazon did not specify the release date for Trainium2 instances to AWS customers, except for indicating they will be available “sometime next year.” The second chip introduced was Graviton4.

Graviton4 marks the fourth generation delivered in five years and is “the most powerful and energy-efficient chip we have ever built for a broad range of workloads,” David Brown, vice president of Compute and Networking at AWS, said. According to the press release, Graviton4 provides up to 30% better compute performance, 50% more cores, and 75% more memory bandwidth than current generation Graviton3 processors.

AWS & Nvidia deepening ties at re:Invent 2023

AWS CEO Adam Selipsky and Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang at the re:Invent 2023.

AWS’s strategy doesn’t solely rely on selling affordable Amazon-branded products; similar to its online retail marketplace, Amazon’s cloud platform will showcase premium products from other vendors including Nvidia.

After Microsoft unveiled its Nvidia H200 GPUs for the Azure cloud, Amazon made parallel announcements at the Reinvent conference. AWS disclosed plans to offer access to Nvidia’s latest H200 AI graphics processing units alongside its own chips, including the new models.

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“AWS and Nvidia have collaborated for over 13 years, beginning with the world’s first GPU cloud instance. Today, we offer the widest range of Nvidia GPU solutions for workloads including graphics, gaming, high-performance computing, machine learning, and now, generative AI,” Selipsky said. “We continue to innovate with Nvidia to make AWS the best place to run GPUs, combining next-gen Nvidia Grace Hopper Superchips with AWS’s EFA powerful networking, EC2 UltraClusters’ hyper-scale clustering, and Nitro’s advanced virtualization capabilities.”

A detailed explanation of AWS and Nvidia’s collaboration can be found in this standalone article.

Amazon Q: a chatbot for businesses

In the competitive landscape of AI assistants, Amazon has entered the fray with its offering, Amazon Q. Developed by the company’s cloud computing division; this workplace-focused chatbot is

distinctively tailored for corporate use, steering clear of consumer applications. “We think Q has the potential to become a work companion for millions and millions of people in their work life,” Selipsky told The New York Times.

Amazon Q is designed to assist employees with their daily tasks, from summarizing strategy documents to handling internal support tickets and addressing queries related to company policies. Positioned in the corporate chatbot arena, it will contend with counterparts like Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Duet AI, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise.

Titan Image Generator and Guardrails for Bedrock

Aligning itself with the multitude of tech giants and startups that have ventured into this domain, Amazon is introducing an image generator. Unveiled at AWS re:Invent 2023, Amazon said the Titan Image Generator is now in preview on Bedrock for AWS users. As part of the Titan generative AI models, it can generate new images based on text or customize existing ones.

#AWS is putting the “art” back into “artificial intelligence” with the new Amazon Titan Image Generator. #MachineLearning #AI

Learn more. https://t.co/pOzi2TaPPk pic.twitter.com/NvRdCtLuiu

— Amazon Web Services (@awscloud) November 29, 2023

“[You] can use the model to easily swap out an existing [image] background to a background of a rainforest [for example],” Swami Sivasubramanian, VP for data and machine learning services at AWS, said onstage. “[And you] can use the model to seamlessly swap out backgrounds to generate lifestyle images, all while retaining the image’s main subject and creating a few more options.”

AWS also unveiled Guardrails for Amazon Bedrock, enabling consistent implementation of safeguards ensuring user experiences align with company policies. “These guardrails facilitate the definition of denied topics and content filters, removing undesirable content from interactions,” AWS noted in a blog post.

AWS customers can now develop a tailored generative model, designed specifically to perform in their unique domain, with fine-tuning of Command on Amazon Bedrock. Source: AWS

Applied to all large language models in Amazon Bedrock, including fine-tuned models and Agents, guardrails deploy preferences across applications, promoting “safe innovation while managing user experiences.”

The post GenAI unveilings at AWS re:Invent 2023: AI chips to chatbot appeared first on TechHQ.

A speaker line-up featuring time-saving business tech leaders, Formula 1 celebrities, and futurists will never disappoint. And TechHQ made sure to take a front-row seat at the invite-only Zoomtopia Leaders Connect event in London, UK, to find out how companies can get ahead using a growing ecosystem of enterprise apps and hardware.

What is Zoom?

Zoom’s popularity rocketed when the business world went big on remote working. “Let’s have a meeting,” quickly became, “Let’s Zoom.” And while the tech firm – headquartered in San Jose, California, US – is immensely proud of its status as a verb, there’s much more to Zoom beyond enabling video telephony.

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“Zoom is meetings, but Zoom as a platform has expanded a lot,” Smita Hashim, Chief Product Officer at the firm, told the media at a press briefing ahead of her Zoomtopia Leaders Connect: London keynote.

Today, Zoom is active in supporting flexible workspaces, employee engagement, contact center operations, and remote maintenance using augmented reality – to give just a few examples of time-saving business tech solutions available to enterprises.

Also, while it’s of little surprise to learn that Zoom has – like almost every other enterprise software provider – introduced gen AI into its suite of tools, the fact that it provides those features at no additional cost to paying users is a differentiator.

Welcome to our new chief product officer, Smita Hashim!

Bringing an impressive background of innovative leadership in the collaboration space and building upon products that continue to be vital to enterprise businesses, we look forward to her contributions at Zoom! pic.twitter.com/nmSH1W4ouM

— Zoom (@Zoom) February 6, 2023

Hashim points out that you don’t need to engage large AI models for all tasks. And the federated architecture, which includes algorithms from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Zoom’s own designs, makes it more cost-effective – picking the best solution for a given request.

Reflecting on time-saving business tech solutions enabled using gen AI, one of the most useful to organizations is the ability of large language models (LLMs) to provide meeting summaries and generate a list of actions.

Zoom users have this feature, which means that attendees can fully engage with what’s happening in the meeting, rather than being distracted by having to make notes. The summaries are so popular that in-person attendees routinely hit the join button even when no one is dialing in, to enable the digital productivity features – which include presentation coaching – for everyone in the room.

Fans of stoic philosophy will recall that we have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak, and modern business tools such as AI-enabled meeting coaching let you put that to the test. Apps record ratios of talking to listening, speech rate, and tone – to list just some of the user feedback that’s available.

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How contact center AI helps businesses and customers

Having a record of events gives team members who couldn’t attend the means to quickly catch up on what happened, without having to listen back to the online discussion in full. Plus, staff wanting to prepare for a call can instruct the AI companion to summarize not just one, but a whole series of meetings to get up to speed on projects and understand how customer relationships are progressing.

Also, if you’ve been on holiday for a week and return to hundreds of chat messages, the AI companion can summarize the list of unread items for you – another tick for time-saving business tech. “Zoom team chat is one of the jewels in our platform,” Hashim told the audience in her keynote.

In just 18 months, the company – known for its online meetings, but delivering on many more fronts – has added 600 features to its product suite. Having translated captions generated in real-time means that conversations can flow much more naturally, overcoming language barriers. And smart recordings include chapters, based on key meeting events, making it easier to look back through those files.

Time-saving business tech for contact centers

The fact that so many sales calls happen on Zoom speaks to why the company launched an omnichannel contact center product, and – as the presenters explained – it builds on the AI assistant capabilities that we’ve just discussed.

On TechHQ, we’ve written about how customer experience (CX) plus employee experience (EX) equals business growth, and the point was made again in London about how CX and EX go hand in hand.

Speaking in the first of the afternoon’s panel sessions, Oru Mohiuddin – Senior Research Manager at IDC, a market intelligence provider – reminded the audience that contact centers can’t have happy customers without happy agents. And AI summaries can help with that.

“When calls get transferred from agent to agent, having a call summary in real-time has a multiplier effect on customer and agent experience,” said Hashim. “I want users to have high expectations and to push us to do more.”

Driving secure messaging and fan engagement: Zoom is an innovation partner of Oracle Red Bull Racing. Jack Harington (left) – Senior Partnership Manager at Oracle Red Bull Racing – and motor racing legend David Coulthard explained how time-saving business tech makes a difference in Formula 1. Image credit: JT/TechHQ.

And on the topic of high expectations, it was fascinating to hear about how communications platforms drive the pinnacle of motorsport – Formula 1. Invited to participate in the discussion were Jack Harington, Senior Partnership Manager at Oracle Red Bull Racing, and motor racing legend David Coulthard – a multiple Grand Prix winner, broadcaster, and businessman.

In a video accompanying the Zoomtopia Leaders Connect: London session, Christian Horner – Team Principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing – told viewers that fast and secure messaging will always be critical to race day success. And with 21 out of 22 wins to their name in this year’s Formula 1 championship, Oracle Red Bull Racing knows all about success.

Zoom’s partnership with Red Bull Racing is more than just a branding exercise. The Formula 1 team uses the communication platform to enable live conversations between crew at the track and staff based in the operations room. “Red Bull is pretty picky about how it picks its innovation partners,” Harington told attendees.

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Regulations restrict the number of team personnel to 60 people over the race weekend, and so teams have parallel operations back at the factory to advise on strategy and other technical matters. And it says a lot that Oracle Red Bull Racing chose Zoom above other solutions for its in-the-loop decision-making.

Another reason for why the combination works well is the events platform. Harington comments that Red Bull has become one of the most followed sports teams in the world. And the 2023 F1 championship winners want to engage with those fans.

Running member experiences using Zoom Events – which can handle events of all kinds: in-person, virtual or hybrid – gives Red Bull the chance to make fans loyal by giving back to them. Zoom uses the platform to host its annual Zoomtopia developer conference.

The time-saving business tech firm wants to be a working example of how to create an effective hybrid workplace, and makes great use of the solutions that it and its partners have developed.

Today, companies want flexible workplaces that are modular and can be reconfigured. And in the exhibit area were examples of Zoom Room solutions from DTEN, Jabra, Logitech, Neat, and Poly.

Speaking with the Jabra team, features include multiple cameras for 180-degree views, physical whiteboard integration (making it easy for remote attendees to see written text and drawings), and sound boundary settings.

Zoom has an intelligent director feature that adds TV production touches so that attendees joining remotely feel part of the action alongside in-person colleagues. And engagement segues nicely to another one of the big themes at the London show.

Earlier this year, Zoom acquired Workvivo – an employee communication and engagement platform – and the tool has been integrated into the Zoom client. Gideon Pridor, Head of Marketing at Workvivo, pointed to some big customers such as Virgin. All 40 companies in the Virgin Group – a total of 60,000 employees – now use WorkView, including Richard Branson himself.

Pridor makes the point that it’s not practical for enterprises to bring 60,000 people together physically, but employee engagement platforms let you do that digitally. It’s another example of time-saving business tech, in this case one that bridges office staff, hybrid workers, and those on the road, as well as front line workers. The tool was designed with mobile in mind right from the beginning.

CEO’s can cut out intermediaries and reach out directly to staff to feel the pulse of their organization. Modern employee engagement tools are a practical way for executive teams to develop a company culture, bring people closer to the business, and strengthen companies.

Preparing for the future – a guide

Given how unpredictable the future can be, the question becomes how best can companies prepare? The sudden success of generative AI has taken firms by surprise. And perhaps one tip – based on the last talk of the day by Sophie Hackford, a futurist – is to keep an open mind.

Global AI perspective: futurist Sophie Hackford commented on how the world itself is becoming a computer, and highlighted opportunities for human-machine teaming. Image credit: JT/TechHQ.

“Tech is never its past,” she told the audience. “It’s something that’s all around us.” Hackford points out that computers are no longer just giant calculators and are starting to act more like the human brain. In fact, the world itself is fast becoming a computer. Warehouses are automated, vehicles can drive themselves (to a degree), and satellites create data that’s designed for machines – such as hyperspectral imaging – rather than being accessible to the human eye.

Hackford notes that we are weaving computational landscapes, which include us through wearable devices. The natural world shouldn’t be forgotten too, as researchers provide a glimpse into fascinating topics such as fungal computing.

“Pea roots listen for the sound of water to guide their roots,” she adds.

With so much to puzzle, everyone needs more time – and time-saving business tech such as Zoom’s productivity tools can buy some of that back for all of us.

The post Time-saving tech for business: Zoom leaders connect in London appeared first on TechHQ.

As companies set their training budgets for 2024, there are good reasons to predict that spending on immersive learning solutions delivered through VR will increase. Improvements in VR headsets, including the addition of mixed-reality experiences, have enriched online training options for staff. But there’s another big factor as to why organizations are ramping up on VR-based training – detailed performance analytics. “VR’s superpower is being able to track movement through time and space,” Tom Symonds – CEO of Immerse – told TechHQ.

Online VR-based training courses for staff have the capacity to measure not just whether trainees have passed or failed a task, but can determine how well they performed. For example, when learning a new manufacturing process, did the operator move too fast or too slow, and how consistent were their actions?

VR training superpower

In sport, modern VR systems can differentiate between players of different skill levels – for example, distinguishing between novice, academy, and professional soccer players – in this case, using motion tracking sensors attached to shin pads and training shoes. And these analysis capabilities cross over into other areas.

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“Life sciences companies have a very specific understanding of the prospects,” said Symonds, noting a sector that’s paying particularly close attention to the multiple benefits of VR when considering online training options for staff.

Thanks to the immersive learning experience of VR-based training, it’s possible for firms to enable their staff to walk around new factories and get to grips with processes ahead of facilities being opened. It means that companies growing fast can hit the ground running and don’t have to wait as long to achieve full production capabilities.

Not only do skills learned in VR translate remarkably well into the workplace, those skills can be coached with precision thanks to the detailed performance analytics only available with body tracking. “We’re just at the beginning of what can be done with that data capture,” adds Symonds.

Work shadowing: skills can be coached with precision using VR-based training tools.

With the ability to gather many data points per second, it’s easy to imagine how best practice could be recorded and then ghosted in VR for trainees to follow.

One of the big takeaways looking at today’s immersive learning opportunities is how VR takes online training courses for staff to a new level. More than just generating crude pass/fail results, which offer little insight for managers and industry coaches, learning experiences can become much more performance-based.

That’s not to say that barriers to more widespread adoption of VR-based online training for staff don’t remain. A common issue is that VR has to be seen to be believed, but Symonds sees this as more of a speedbump than a long-term problem. “It rarely takes more than a couple of minutes before they get it,” he said, commenting on how quickly people start to champion VR-based training once they put a headset on.

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It also helps that tech giants such as Meta and Apple are investing millions of dollars in developing new spatial computing hardware, such as the Quest 3 and Vision Pro – spreading the word on the features and benefits of VR through global advertising campaigns.

Immerse reports various metrics for why it makes sense for companies to consider VR options when thinking about online training opportunities for staff. Lessons learned in VR are memorable and, as mentioned, translate well into the workplace. The firm has seen a 76% accident risk reduction for clients using VR-based training content on its platform.

Naturally, there are also cost savings for remote learning tools. Staff can upskill without leaving the home or office. And the richness of the training experience means that courses are often shorter than classroom equivalents, with candidates ready to operate real-world equipment in record time.

Symonds makes the point that training solutions have to be able to scale, and modern platforms enable training content to be streamed to multiple users. Immerse’s solution also provides a marketplace connecting content makers with customers wanting VR training material.

VR training is transforming medical education! A @UCLA-backed study reveals a remarkable 44% reduction in procedure time.

Results:
Higher global assessment scores (17.5 vs. 7.5)
More correct steps (63% vs. 25%)
Superior knowledge improvement (50% vs. 11%)

Jeremy Dalton pic.twitter.com/gReRZ78igf

— Varun Kumar Siddaraju (@varunsiddaraju) November 13, 2023

Its content library contains more than a hundred different VR training applications across multiple industry sectors. For companies wanting to get started, Symonds recommends starting with some common training types, such as health and safety topics. And Immerse offers ‘VR in a box’ – which includes headsets, five marketplace apps of your choice, access to the streaming platform for content distribution and tracking, and comes with a mobile device management solution pre-installed.

Looking at the topics covered, it’s clear that the ability to fail safely is another appealing feature of VR-based training. Hazard awareness and how to work safely at heights are certainly skills that are worth brushing up on, and there are multiple modules designed for workers in the mining industry.

Online training options for staff are broad. Bodyswaps – one of Immerse’s content partners – uses VR training for soft skills development. First, users practice their skills, in their own words, using their own voice and body language. Then – thanks to the motion-tracking capabilities of VR, they can swap bodies and watch back from another perspective, which provides an impactful learning experience.

Earlier this year, at Meta Connect – which Symonds attended – Mark Zuckerberg spoke about how generative AI would improve the capabilities of so-called non-player characters (NPCs). And you can picture how NPCs, trained using a company’s standard operating procedures, could add to enterprise VR training scenarios – helping to direct employees on specific activities and tasks, and acting as virtual training assistants.

However, companies and their employees don’t need to wait for the future to benefit from VR training. We’ve listed some of the online training options for staff below to give a flavor of how immersive learning in VR has grown.

List of VR training providers –

The post Immersive learning: VR reboots online training for staff appeared first on TechHQ.

Factoring in how expertise learned in VR can translate remarkably well into the real-world – for example, bringing helicopter engineers up to speed on maintenance in record time or helping to plan better factories – strengthens the case for firms exploring digital training opportunities. Plus, you have the cost-savings and convenience that go hand-in-hand with remote learning. However, when budgets are tight, investing in new hardware may not appeal. What’s needed to spread the benefits of immersive, industrially relevant experiences more widely is a much more affordable VR headset.

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Being able to use technology that you already own lowers the barrier to adoption. And, for many of us, the heart of what’s needed to engineer an affordable VR headset is just an arm’s length away in the form of our smartphones. Flagship mobile devices have pin-sharp displays, fast-rendering graphics, and even wide-angle camera lenses for video passthrough to fuse real and virtual environments in mixed reality.

It’s often said that commercial VR headsets are basically smartphones strapped to your head, and – over several years – UK-based Zappar has been refining that concept in the form of its mixed-reality Zapbox project. What’s more, the product – now shipping in the UK, Europe, and US – doesn’t just provide users with an affordable VR headset with a 100 deg FoV, it comes with 6DoF controllers too.

To find out more, TechHQ visited Zappar’s London headquarters to speak with the team and, importantly, put the firm’s affordable VR headset solution to the test. When it comes to evaluating the broad family of extended reality (XR) technology, nothing beats sampling the technology firsthand.

First impressions of the Zapbox mixed-reality headset

To use the Zapbox, you begin by simply clipping in your iPhone. Android support is in the works, with fewer device choices making Apple’s ecosystem a simpler starting point for the project. Simon Taylor, Co-Founder and Chief Research & Development Officer at Zappar, explained that Apple smartphones from the iPhone 11 upward will provide the best experience.

The affordable VR headset is light and comfortable to wear. Because of the open design, you don’t feel as blocked out from your surroundings compared with wearing a closed facial interface – for example, as found on Meta’s Quest VR headsets. Given these characteristics, it feels like mixed reality experiences will be the sweet spot for the Zapbox. And TechHQ had the chance to try out some of the firm’s software demos.

Mixed reality through the lens: can you see a chess bot on the Zappar sofa? Testing out the Zapbox in London, UK.

Touching on Zappar’s backstory reveals why the company is well placed to enable mixed reality experiences using an affordable VR headset featuring a smartphone (and controllers, which we’ll get to in a moment). For many years, Zappar has been helping global brands such as Puma, Vodafone, Disney, and many others connect with consumers through innovative augmented reality smartphone experiences.

You may have bought a product inviting you to discover more by aiming your mobile camera at a QR code on the packaging. Considering examples from Zappar’s portfolio of work, consumers following such a digital trail may see a virtual history book drop from the sky and open up alongside the actual product in the camera view. Continuing the AR experience, the smartphone screen could fill with mixed-reality animations telling the target product’s story in a memorable way.

Zappar’s first step in adding to its core AR business by offering existing clients and new customers an affordable VR headset was to begin with cardboard. “The design worked much better than anyone expected,” Taylor told TechHQ. “It showed that you could have a tangible experience with an existing phone.”

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Going beyond the capabilities of Google’s fold-out cardboard VR viewer, Zappar added controllers with orientation markers and even triggers that could be read thanks to a traveling indicator, which moved when the cardboard button was squeezed. And given the promise of adding to the utility of a device that millions of people already own – a smartphone – the team went from cardboard to having an industrial design available in molded plastic.

As well as Bluetooth, the developers added inertial measurement unit (IMU) capabilities to their controller design, which provides fallback for when the optically-tracked units move outside the smartphone’s field of view. As mentioned, Zappar has apps available to give users a taste of what’s possible using a smartphone-powered affordable VR headset and controllers.

Also, to boost the amount of compatible content, its possible to bootstrap from other ecosystems. For example, Taylor explains that the Zapbox platform is compatible with WebXR standards, which makes it straightforward for VR software developers to port titles across.

On site, TechHQ got to experience a block-building mixed-reality tool where digital assets could be placed on top of items seen in the real-world. And, although the software was simply a demo app, it was clear how such a design could be used in getting staff up to speed on a complex assembly process, for example.

The all new zapbox from @ZapparApp is looking fantastic at AWE USA in Santa Clara#AWEUSA #AWEUSA2023 #AWE2023 #community #augmentedreality #virtualreality #XR #VR #events pic.twitter.com/UvW1gxMZnV

— Anything World (@_AnythingWorld) June 1, 2023

Zapbox users also get to play mixed-reality chess and pool, which includes a virtual bot – in the case of chess – giving feedback on the moves made on the board. Table-top experiences translate well into VR, and the addition of mixed reality, using passthrough video via the smartphone’s wide-angle lens and camera, makes it feel like the digital on-screen graphics are in the room.

As well as controllers, the affordable VR headset comes with so-called origin markers that give the digital graphics, which may be shared between users (imagine two people playing chess or pool remotely), a common reference point.

Kirk Ewing, Zapbox General Manager, points out that there are hundreds of millions of smartphones out there that could be repurposed as mixed reality devices using the headset and controller combination. Enterprises that already provide staff with mobiles could introduce VR into their organizations with little additional cost.

Zappar is by no means the only company offering cellphone-compatible VR headsets. But its well-engineered design is noteworthy and plays to the strengths of the firm’s proven capability in AR. And there’s one more thing.

How to watch Apple spatial video without a Vision Pro

Spending time with the Zappar team, it’s clear that they are an enthusiastic bunch. And who wouldn’t be if you get to explore the creative worlds of augmented and mixed reality? But on the day TechHQ arrived, there was an extra level of excitement in the room.

Apple’s iOS 17.2 update had dropped in beta for developers that morning, which – as the US tech giant’s release notes reveal – includes the ability to ‘capture spatial video with remarkable depth on iPhone 15 Pro to view in 3D in the Photos app on Apple Vision Pro’.

But the Vision Pro isn’t expected until 2024 and will cost thousands of dollars. Is there any way for iPhone 15 Pro users to experience spatial video directly from their smartphones? Zappar’s Chief R&D Officer had been running tests with the Zapbox to find out, and when TechHQ turned up, the first thing he showed was how to watch Apple spatial video without a Vision Pro.

With iOS 17.2 installed, users can record spatial video – having turned on spatial video capture in Settings > Camera > Formats – on their iPhone 15 Pro and watch back the 3D stereoscopic experience on their smartphone clipped into an $80 Zapbox.

The more time that we get to spend with commercial XR technology, the stronger the feeling that 2024 could be a breakthrough year for enterprise VR. And seeing the Zapbox in action adds to that belief.

The post Enterprise VR gets price drop thanks to smartphone headset appeared first on TechHQ.

• Huawei’s AI chip business is progressing, with Baidu reportedly buying in bulk recently.
• A Chinese government-backed computer lab plans to build one of the world’s largest AI computing platforms using Huawei’s Ascend AI chip.
• The limitations the US has set on Nvidia’s sale of advanced AI chips to China are creating an opening for Huawei to increase its market presence.

Not long after Huawei surprised the world with its 5G-enabled smartphone, the Chinese telecommunication giant started making strides once again–this time involving AI chips. It all started two days ago when a government-backed computer lab in China announced its plans to build one of the world’s largest AI computing platforms using Huawei’s Ascend AI chip.

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According to local media reports, Peng Cheng Laboratory expects to debut the platform, Cloud Brain III, around late 2024 to early 2025. Peng Cheng unveiled its initial Cloud Brain platform in 2019, then equipped with Nvidia chips, boasting a computing power of 120 petaflops. 

Following that, in 2020, an upgraded version of the platform was introduced, featuring Huawei’s Ascend 910A chip, which significantly increased the computing power – to over 1,000 petaflops. “Cloud Brain III will use the new Ascend 910C processor and have up to 16,000 petaflops, or quadrillions of floating-point operations per second, of computing power,” said Gao Wen, director of the Peng Cheng Laboratory, at an AI forum held at Peking University in Beijing last Friday.

What is clear as day is the fact that China is gaining momentum despite the unprecedented US restrictions imposed over the last few years. In fact, the rotating chairman of Huawei, Eric Xu, among many others, has explained that the tech restrictions imposed by Washington would ultimately only strengthen China’s domestic semiconductor industry, rather than weakening it. 

“I believe China’s semiconductor industry will not sit idly by, but take efforts around… self-strengthening and self-reliance,” he said during a March 2023 press conference. He also boldly stated that China’s chip industry will be “reborn” due to US sanctions.

Xu wasn’t entirely wrong; he was echoing what other experts have said. Months after the US imposed a stringent set of export controls on October 7, 2022, China started making strides, specifically in semiconductor technology. China even went as far as introducing a 5G smartphone featuring a domestically manufactured miniaturized silicon chip, which many analysts previously thought was unachievable by Chinese firms in the wake of the US-led technology ban.

Eric Xu, Huawei deputy chairman and current rotating chairman, speaks during the Huawei 2022 Annual Report press conference in Shenzhen, in China’s southern Guangdong province on March 31, 2023. (Photo by AFP) / China OUT

The strides from China signaled the limits of the US-led sanctions. So, what could the US do to better constrain China’s semiconductor expansion?

The Biden administration targeted the hottest commodity in the market: AI chips. Last month, the US Department of Commerce unveiled new rules, intending to close loopholes after last year’s restrictions on AI chip exports went into effect.

The earlier restrictions banned the sale of the Nvidia H100, the processor of choice for AI firms worldwide, mainly in the US and China. Following that, Chinese companies could buy a slightly slowed-down version called the H800 or A800 that was explicitly made to comply with US restrictions (primarily by slowing down an on-device connection speed, called an interconnect).

The updated rules have banned those ‘slower’ chips as well, leaving Chinese companies scrambling for stockpiles. Experts were quick to fathom how the restrictions would immediately cut off a significant and growing market for AI semiconductors. Nvidia believes it might hurt its business in the long term, but what is certain amid all the US efforts to cripple China’s technological advancement is that it will boost Chinese firms’ development, rather than hampering it.

Huawei could be filling in the AI chips gap in China

Huawei, more widely recognized worldwide for its telecommunications and smartphone business, has been actively developing an AI chip product line for the past four years. It unveiled its push into AI technology at at Huawei Connect 2018, releasing two chips, neural networks compute architecture, a development toolkit, and a cloud training framework across AI.

What could have stood out if it was unveiled amid the current fascination around AI is Huawei’s Ascend AI chip series, which includes the Ascend 910 and Ascend 310. The chips were made available in 2019, the year Huawei was hit by the most severe US restrictions. 

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Back then, Huawei asserted that its chip was the most powerful AI processor globally, and according to Chinese media reports, the initial Ascend 910 chip was fabricated using a 7-nanometer manufacturing process. Even with this, the chip couldn’t significantly challenge Nvidia’s supremacy, both in domestic and international markets. 

Nvidia launched its A100 and H100 chips in 2020 and 2022, capturing the lion’s share of the global AI chip market, a trend further fueled by the rise of generative AI. The main product to rival Nvidia’s A100 chip would later be the Ascend 910B. Analysts have also noticed that Nvidia held a significant advantage over Huawei as an incumbent player, mainly due to the existing AI projects relying on Nvidia’s well-established software ecosystem. 

Although Huawei has its own ecosystem called CANN, experts point out that it has limitations when training AI models compared to Nvidia’s ecosystem. But there have been some changes in China of late, and Huawei might again be in a race to grab a slice of Nvidia’s AI chip market share.

Following local reports on a state-backed lab selecting Huawei chip for an upcoming AI supercomputer, Reuters this week reported that Baidu, one of China’s leading AI companies, had ordered 1,600 of Huawei’s 910B Ascend AI chips. Baidu had been a long-time client of Nvidia, so the move demonstrates how Chinese firms are exploring alternatives to the latter’s products due to the export restrictions by the US – and also possibly the supply chain crunch in which Nvidia finds itself due to its pre-eminence in the market.

Reuters indicated that the order by Baidu was for 200 servers.

When was Huawei’s Ascend 910B launched?

Huawei Ascend 910 and Ascend 910 Overview. Source: Huawei

Huawei hasn’t made an official announcement regarding the Ascend 910B, but it is undoubtedly a revised version of the Ascend 910. Specific details about the chip have surfaced through comments from Chinese firms and academics, along with technical information available on Huawei’s website.

In August this year, Liu Qingfeng, the chairman of the Chinese AI company iFlytek, lauded Huawei for developing a GPU that he likened to Nvidia’s A100. He mentioned that iFlytek was collaborating with Huawei on hardware development. Subsequently, Chinese media outlet Yicai reported that the hardware in question was powered by the previously undisclosed Ascend 910B chip.

Within the same month, documents relating to Ascend 910B, such as driver and firmware upgrade guides, began appearing on Huawei’s website. Even during iFlyTek’s recent earnings call, senior vice president Jiang Tao reiterated that the capabilities of the Ascend 910B were comparable to those of Nvidia’s A100.

“Analysts and insiders suggest that the 910B chips offer comparable raw computing power to Nvidia’s chips but may lag slightly in overall performance. Nevertheless, they are considered the most advanced domestically-produced option available in China,” the report by Reuters reads.

Perhaps this was what Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou meant when she said the telecommunications giant would go big on AI by “building a solid computing base for China – and a second option for the world.” 

The post Huawei is poised to take up Nvidia’s position in China’s AI chip market appeared first on TechHQ.

• India semiconductor superpower plans struggling for realization.
• The country had a staggered start in the industry.
• Even new funding has struggled to strike the right deals.

India’s tryst with semiconductors began in the 1970s when the country first ventured into electronics manufacturing. However, at that time, India was primarily an importer of semiconductor chips, relying on other nations for its technology needs. By 1976, the need to develop indigenous semiconductor capabilities grew more prominent, leading the Cabinet of India to approve the formation of Semiconductor Complex Limited (SCL).

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SCL was supposed to play a pivotal role in advancing India’s capabilities in semiconductor and electronics manufacturing. Its mission was to promote the indigenous manufacturing of semiconductor devices, integrated circuits, and other electronic components. However, SCL faced challenges and setbacks along the way, including a devastating fire in 1989, which affected its progress.

It took eight painstaking years for the facility to restart operations in 1997, continue producing DRAM chips, and eventually expand into manufacturing other semiconductors. Then, in 2006, the Indian government decided to restructure the company as a research & development center within the Department of Space, renaming it “Semiconductor Lab.” 

India had a staggered start in semiconductors. Source: Forbes India.

Despite the restructuring, to date, SCL has stood as India’s sole semiconductor fab and is the only government-owned semiconductor fabrication unit that produces chips for strategic purposes.

Local reports claim that it can fabricate 200 millimeters (mm) of silicon wafers using the 180 nanometres (nm) process node, at a rate of several thousand units per month. 

Those chips were also used to power the country’s recent Mars Mission, but are considered legacy chips.

Identifying the need to benefit from the already existing fab, in May 2023, the Union government announced a US$2 billion investment for the commercialization and modernization of SCL. 

But for many, India had missed the semiconductor bus owing to poor policies of the government in the late 80s.

That’s why India remains generations behind in the global race, a setback Narendra Modi, the current premier, would like to change.

The pandemic provoked new ambitions in the current Indian government, and now Modi wants India to transform itself into a semiconductor superpower.

The road to chip supremacy is paved with good incentives 

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The Covid-19 pandemic changed the landscape of the semiconductor world. A shortage of chips emerged, and it became evident how reliant the world was on Taiwan for chip production. The worsening geopolitical situation between China and the US was only making a tense supply chain situation worse.

India saw an opportunity in this situation. 

The country began aiming big–to bring semiconductor manufacturing within its borders, this time with a new approach. Its open economy and improved infrastructure, coupled with various foreign companies operating manufacturing facilities, created favorable conditions for the country to begin making genuine progress in semiconductors. 

Then came December 2021, when India unveiled a substantial US$10 billion incentive plan for the semiconductor industry. Manufacturers were offered government money if they produced and exported a specific quantity of chips from India, with the government covering nearly 50% of the initial setup costs. But incentives were something familiar to India.

The country introduced semiconductor policies in 2007 and 2013, but those policies had only limited success. In 2007, the government introduced India’s initial Semiconductor Policy, intending to attract INR 24,000 crore investments over three years and establish three fabrication units. During this time, AMD and Intel contemplated establishing fabrication units in India.  

Indian plans to become a semiconductor superpower have been slow to deliver.

SemIndia, a group of Indian technologists, entered into a licensing agreement with AMD to utilize the latter’s technology for creating a semiconductor fabrication facility. Intel, which had initiated its operations in India in 1988, announced plans to invest US$1 billion in India, including possibly constructing a fabrication facility. 

However, these plans did not materialize, due to factors including delays in the passage of the Semiconductor Policy and the policy’s stringent minimum investment requirements. AMD’s decision to spin off its fabrication units into a separate company, GlobalFoundries, also played a role, as did fundraising challenges and production delays.

Then came India’s final failed semiconductor policy in 2013-14, when the government made an effort to rejuvenate its chip initiatives by granting Letters of Intent (LOIs) to two consortia: Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (comprising ST Microelectronics and Silterra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.) and Jaiprakash Associates Ltd. (in partnership with IBM and Tower Semiconductor Ltd). 

The latter group withdrew its proposal in 2016, citing financial challenges. In 2019, the government revoked HSMC’s permit due to prolonged paperwork delays on the company’s part. Experts believe the failure of the 2007 and 2013 semiconductor policies was simply down to their not being lucrative enough. There were also delays in implementing the policies, which meant India missed the chance to attract semiconductor manufacturers. 

Unfortunately, the US$10 billion incentive plan isn’t panning out as India expected. Although the government is doing all it can to bring India to the global semiconductor stage, the efforts have yet to yield significant results. So much so that Modi’s government even went as far as reopening bids for its US$10 billion subsidy program for chipmakers after five initial applications, including one from a consortium of industrial group Vedanta and Taiwanese Apple supplier Foxconn, failed to qualify for government support. 

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Other applicants running for the first round of the government incentives announced in December 2021 included the International Semiconductor Consortium (ISMC) consortium led by Abu-Dhabi-based Next Orbit Ventures and Singapore-based IGSS Ventures. ISMC is a joint venture between Next Orbit Ventures and Israel’s TowerSemiconductor. Intel acquired the Israeli company in February last year, and the acquisition is yet to be completed.

When the US$10 billion application process was relaunched in June, India tweaked the specifications, seeking proposals to produce “mature nodes” of 40 nanometres or above — larger than the more expensive 28nm chips it previously specified. But some critics claim India’s aspirations in the semiconductor manufacturing sector are overly ambitious, attempting to jump into an exceedingly competitive industry dominated by countries like Taiwan, Japan, and the US. 

India semiconductor infrastructure ready and waiting?

But India’s Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, in an interview with the Financial Times, said, “The ecosystem is already there. Getting the fab is the next step, which is what we are focused on.”

However, following the fallout of Foxconn-Vedanta’s consortium, the only other big semiconductor company that has announced interest in the government incentives has been US-based Micron Technology. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi talks with Minister for Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw during SemiconIndia 2023, at Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar on July 28, 2023. (Photo by SAM PANTHAKY/AFP)

Micron, in June, confirmed a semiconductor assembly testing facility in Sanand, Gujarat, where it will invest US$825 million in two phases of the project, with a total investment of US$2.75 billion including government incentives under the PLI scheme. The facility will be used for the assembly and testing of DRAM and NAND flash modules, and the project will create 5,000 direct and 15,000 indirect community jobs. 

According to Vaishnaw, after Micron, there was renewed interest and momentum among leading semiconductor players in India, and the government was receiving inquiries from multiple players and geographies. But while India’s incentive plan is noteworthy in the nation’s history, there is no denying that it is smaller than the US$52 billion CHIPS Act by the US and €43 billion by the EU.

Since India is starting its fab journey from scratch, complications will unfold. Certainly, conjuring a thoroughgoing, competitive chipmaking industry will be no mean feat, and the road to becoming a semiconductor superpower will be a long, arduous one.

But wooing semiconductor giants is proving to be the first stumbling block, and one that India has yet to overcome. Then, if tech giants like Micron are to weave their way into the country’s semiconductor fabric through recent significant investments, the government must improve the business environment, create employment opportunities, and strengthen the country’s internal infrastructure.

The post Does India have what it takes to be a semiconductor superpower? appeared first on TechHQ.

There are more mobile phones on the planet than people, and many users will be within arm’s reach of their devices 24 hours a day. Smartphones put internet connectivity in the palm of our hand, which is incredibly useful and – one could argue – makes the world run a little smoother. But there’s a privacy angle to consider too, which has given rise to a new class of device – the security and privacy-focused smartphone.

If asked to be fitted with a GPS tracker with multiple microphones and cameras, many of us would refuse the offer. Yet, we don’t hesitate to carry our mobile devices, which contain all of these hardware elements (not to mention movement sensors and a host of digital breadcrumbs), more or less wherever we go.

Out of the box experience: putting the Murena 2 privacy smartphone to the test. GIF: JT.

The cautionary phrase ‘if something is free, you’re the product’ was originally aimed at watchers of ad-funded television in the 1970s, but today it serves as a warning for smartphone users. Our data adds value to search engine and social media giants, providers of mapping services, and many more free-to-use apps.

With the rise of wearables linked to mobile devices, app developers can get to know their users like never before. And while it’s possible to dive deep into the privacy settings to control how much information smartphones and their accessories are sharing, the user experience isn’t ideal.

Pushbutton convenience

Far better to have a hardware switch or two (or even three in the case of the Librem 5 privacy smartphone by Purism). And that’s exactly what some device-makers have added to their designs. The Murena Two, which we’ll be looking at in more detail shortly, has two physical switches – one to disconnect cameras and microphones, and another to disable connectivity.

Interestingly, Apple has added a multi-functional ‘action button’ to its latest range of iPhones, which could be seen as a vote for the convenience of having a hardware switch. But let’s be clear, Apple’s action button isn’t a security switch. Plus, there’s operating system behaviour to take into account as well.

Murena Two privacy smartphone review: trust and advanced privacy notifications. Photo: JT.

Apple, with it’s ‘Privacy. That’s Apple’ campaign, is keen to position itself as a privacy leader. And while iOS users may have some protection, they are still sharing data with Apple. On its website, Murena highlights that – on a typical day of use – a regular iPhone device is requested 51 times per hour, with several megabytes of data leaving the device every day.

A regular Android smartphone, according to the same source, is requested 90 times per hour. But while iOS and Android may dominate the smartphone market, users have other options, which include a number of mobile operating systems that aim to offer a suite of superior security and privacy features.

Examples of privacy smartphones that don’t track you:

• Murena 2
• Fairphone 5 (running “deGoogled” /e/OS or CalyxOS)
• Purism Librem 5
• Google Pixel 5 and above (running privacy-focused GrapheneOS, CalyxOS or /e/OS)
• Bittium Tough Mobile 2C
• K-iPhone

To discover what it’s like to switch from a mainstream iOS or Android device to a privacy smartphone, we get up and running on a Murena 2 (which was kindly sent to TechHQ for review).

Getting started with a privacy smartphone

Turning on the Murena 2 for the first time brings up the /e/OS welcome screen, which features a link to the accessibility settings menu (where users can adjust the display size and text and zoom in on the screen). Other options are the ability to make an emergency call and – likely to be of most interest – a start button to initiate the device.

Pressing start takes users to a list of supported languages. Once a selection has been made (US English in the case of TechHQ), the device checks for the presence of a SIM card. Also, if you’re curious about the small grey triangle at the bottom of the privacy smartphone screen – it’s the back arrow.

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Connecting to the internet over Wi-Fi is as straightforward as you’d expect, and – if you don’t have a SIM card inserted – allows the device to pick up the current date and time. Users then have the option to enable or disable location services, including whether satellite assistance data is downloaded when location is on.

The three-button navigation scheme feels the most intuitive, but users have other options and can select a two-button format instead or use gestures if preferred. Similarly, there are three choices for unlocking the screen – swipe pattern, PIN, or password.

Setting up the fingerprint scanner (not available on the review device) is next on the list. And it’s good to see that /e/OS provides a useful explanation of what’s happening under the hood – for example, pointing out that actual fingerprints are not retained by the device. Biometric passcode information, derived from the user’s fingerprints, is stored locally.

The on-screen instructions also note that activating fingerprint unlock means that somebody could unlock your phone by holding your finger up to the device. Biometric data may be unique, or at least rare, but it’s not secret.

Hidden detail: the Murena Two privacy smartphone features two kill switches (one to disconnect cameras and microphones, and another to disable connectivity). The physical buttons have useful LEDs to indicate on and off positions. Photo: JT.

There’s the option to sync to a cloud account (for example, if you have an e.email or murena.io ID). And once new Murena Two owners arrive at the home screen, the OS provides a couple of useful notifications. The first explains how to assure the device is safe (using the Trust icon, which only shows when page contents have been verified) and another describes advanced privacy options.

If you want the ability to deny trackers, hide your real location (by providing fake data), and enable the TOR network to obscure your actual IP address, then advanced privacy options are your friend. They let users see which trackers (pieces of code hidden in apps) are active and block them.

In our case, when TechHQ selected the option to use a random plausible location, the privacy smartphone settings chose Quezon City in the Philippines.

Installed apps include a web browser with a choice of five search engines (/e/ spot, DuckDuckGo – light and full versions, Mojeek, and Qwant) and Magic Earth – a non-tracking navigation and maps app. Incidentally, Magic Earth can also be downloaded for iOS and regular Android devices.

Multiple app stores in one

There’s more clever privacy-preserving software when it comes to getting other applications on the device. Rather than having an app store, /e/OS features an ‘APP LOUNGE’, which – digging into the terms of service – only works locally on the user’s phone and without transmitting any personal data to E Foundation.

Launching APP LOUNGE, users have the option to sign in with Google, continue in Anonymous mode (which we’ll soon get to), or show only progressive web apps (PWA) and open source apps. Open source apps have the advantage of being open to scrutiny, and PWA titles are served through the browser.

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We downloaded ‘Warehouse Rating’ – a PWA title that may appeal to those with supply chain interests – as part of our device test, and the app downloaded and ran without any issues. Likewise, open source apps were easy to install through APP LOUNGE, which includes titles on F-Droid and other repositories.

Returning to those APP LOUNGE sign-in options, anonymous mode lets users access native apps from the Google Play Store catalog without needing a Google account.

Reasons to try the Murena Two privacy smartphone

One of the strongest use cases for the Murena Two privacy smartphone is giving mobile users the chance to experience life in a deGoogled world. The setup process is quick and mobile users will discover in no time whether they are capable of surviving on privacy-focused apps alone.

There’s also device fingerprinting to keep in mind. By having a Murena Two phone and running /e/OS, users will stand out against a crowd of mainstream Android and iOS devices. However, there are those location faking and obscuring features to help blur the truth and hang on to anonymity.

The post Privacy by design: smartphone vendors make security a selling point appeared first on TechHQ.

• Building businesses in cyber can be harder than it seems.
• The UK Cyber Runway helps companies building businesses in cyber to advance and accelerate.
• The cohort structure gives founders fellow travelers to take through business issues with.

Building businesses in the UK cyber sector is tougher than it first appears. That’s why the UK government backs a program from Plexal called the Cyber Runway, to incentivize, guide, and smooth the pathway of UK cyber enterprises across the sector.

In 2022, we spoke to a handful of women who had joined the Cyber Runway to get a handle on what the program offered them – particularly in terms of support for diversify the cyber sector.

In 2023, we sat down with a cast of, if not thousands, at least significantly more founders in the UK cyber sector to see how the Cyber Runway was helping them in the process of building their businesses.

We met with:

Emma Humphrey – CEO of secure cloud specialist Kuro. 

George Dunlop – Co-founder and director of partnerships at Quantum Dice 

Jonathan Wood – CEO and founder of security and compliance company C2 Cyber   

Lorna Armitage – Co-founder of cybersecurity education organisation at CAPSLOCK 

Mayur Upadhyaya – CEO and co-founder of API security company Contxt, and   

Shelley Langan-Newton – CEO of identity verification platform SQR. 

THQ:

How aware of the Cyber Runway program were any and all of you before you decided to get on it, and what led you to think it was a thing you wanted to try out?

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MU:

We at Contxt had participated in another program, the cybercrime program, by Plexal, the company that actually delivers the Cyber Runway, and I went to one of the pitching events at Lancaster University, got talking with a couple of the founders while we were waiting for a train, and they told me they were on the Scale program, and how much value they were getting from it, both in terms of it helping them with their training, and how they could scale their business. And I thought “Okay, that sounds perfect for where we are in our journey.”

Finding the time for building businesses.

LA:

Yeah, it’s a similar story for us too. We did LORCA a few years ago, and we did the Grow stream of the Cyber Runway too at some point. So we were really familiar with the organization and the people. We got some fantastic support, connections and resources when we did the previous ones, so it just felt like the right time for me and the business to look at the Ignite program, because we’re at quite a pivotal time where we’re looking at scaling and growing and building the business.

The Cyber Runway in action.

THQ:

What sort of things about it made it the right time for you?

LA:

Having a team who can pick up some of the responsibility, which meant I had a little bit more time to be able to dedicate to this. These are things that you really need to concentrate and focus on. So now that we’ve got a good team built around me, I could dedicate time to this now.

EH:

We had the opposite experience, in that we were not aware of Plexal and what they were doing, which was a real shame, because they have a site just around the corner from us. We applied for something else that Plexal were running, and they proactively reached out to us.

I think that’s the really positive thing about Plexal. It is proactively searching for people who could benefit from building their businesses, rather than just waiting for you to apply.

THQ:

So it’s fair to say you all had different pathways into the program. That leads us to the obvious question: how has it been for you? How has your experience on the Runway been, compared to any other accelerators you’ve been on? What sort of things have you particularly taken away from it?

SL-N:

I haven’t actually done any before, so I was coming into this with completely open eyes and probably an open heart as well, but I’m absolutely blown away. I thought, “Oh, great – free coaching. But actually, it’s coaching, mentoring, the support of this group, which is totally inspiring in all different ways. So, big thumbs-up so far – I’m almost sad that we’re two months down. I want this to carry on for longer!

Many hands make for better cyber businesses. (Image generated by AI).

LA:

I think for me, the really nice surprise was how quickly we all clicked as a cohort. The in-person events are a great way for us all to come together. And it’s great to have a space where you can chat through this with other very different businesses, because you realize that you’re all facing very similar challenges.

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Building the Cyber Runway – an accelerator for cyber businesses

Similar pressures but also, different stresses that we can chat through together because someone might already have been where we are and be able to advise on how they dealt with a situation.

We’ve done two workshops so far, and they’ve been great, but the cohort support has been especially fantastic, with the way we’ve all gelled.

An unusual accelerator.

MU:

Yeah, I’ve done a few accelerators before, and this this doesn’t feel necessarily like anything I’ve tried. We’ve created this accountability group between us and we can all share, help each other, mirror each other – that’s been great.

This is very specific in the sense that there are things that we can tell each other that we can’t tell our spouses or some of our co-founders. It’s just great to have that support, especially when I think we’re all going through quite transitional times in our businesses. So that’s been that’s been truly wonderful.

THQ:

Has there been anything that you expected or especially wanted to have on the Runway that hasn’t been there?

All Founders:

*Gaze around in incomprehension.*

THQ:

Allllrighty then, moving on…

GD:

I think you’ve got a response there that’s come from a space of continuous feedback. It’s been wonderful to be able to have two-way engagement throughout the cohorts, which means the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

THQ:

That’s been the way of things? You’ve been able to raise things as you’ve gone along, and they’ve been addressed?

Feedback is crucial to delivering safe spaces.

GD:

Yeah, absolutely.

THQ:

Some of you have mentioned the way that you guys have clicked and become a group as a really positive outcome of the Runway structure. Is that unusual? And is it something you’d like the rest of your teams to experience? Is it something you think would help in terms of building your businesses?

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The Cyber Runway – a virtuous circle for cyber startups?

SL-N:

Certainly, yes. The Plexal team feel like family now, they’ve created this really safe space where you’re encouraged to join in. And there’s an art, I think, in how we were all chosen to be in a cohort. That combination of safe space and good choices of cohort-members, that’s very well thought-out, and I think it’d be helpful for more of the team to have that understanding that I’ve got from this experience.

A community of equals.

THQ:

That camaraderie that’s been mentioned – is that unusual too, as founders of companies? Because you’re usually up at the top of the structure, so you can’t really necessarily vent and talk is – is finding that community unusual for you?

EH:

Yeah, I would definitely say that. When you’re growing a business, your primary concern is the business and the other people within it. You don’t spend much time of your day, week or month thinking, “How do I need to grow and adapt? And how am I doing in this situation?”

It’s really good to have the cohort where you’re not expected to have all the answers. In fact, the cohort is there to rally around you. And it does benefit our team, just to back up what Shelley was saying, because although our teams aren’t here, we’re coming back into our own businesses with better tools, more of a network, more of an understanding and more foresight as to what’s going to come next.

And therefore our team say it’s been hugely positive for them, too.

In the next handful of parts of this article, we’ll take time for a sit-down with each of the founders in turn, to explore their own emerging cyber-business, and how they’re building those businesses.

The post Building businesses in the UK cyber sector appeared first on TechHQ.